Where Skills do not Lie
by SamCyberCat
Summary: Layton is faced with the duty of attending his first parents evening to find out about Flora's progress in school.


Notes – Written for a kinkmeme prompt that wanted Layton doing some sort of resigned parental activity. Set sometime after the first game without any spoilers, unless what happened with Flora in the first game still count as spoilers.

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><p>As long as there have been functioning families involving working parents, there has been an air of the parents trying to navigate their lives around making sure their children are exactly where they need to be, when they need to be there. With the pressure being doubled if there is only one parent to care for said children as opposed to two.<p>

Layton assumed that parents mould their routines around their children naturally over time, since they have the whole of the child's life to adjust to it. It is rather different if you have never been a father before, only to suddenly find a young teenage girl living with you and having to shape what you do around her. Which was what his current situation with Flora was like.

It was entirely different to his experience looking after Luke. Luke was never Layton's son, he was the son of a friend, who Layton more than frequently cared for, but couldn't replace Clark as being the boy's father. It was no lie that Luke was often with him, but he treated Luke as he wanted to be treated – like a student who was learning from him. On multiple occasions the boy had proven himself to be very capable when faced with danger, so Layton didn't worry for him as much as he worried for his recently acquired daughter.

That wasn't to say that he was perfect in being constantly around to care for Flora either. As she would probably tell you herself, he had on many occasions left Flora behind out of both a desire to keep her out of danger and sometimes just out of thoughtlessness. Though he tried his hardest, Layton often found it quite difficult to be responsible for a daughter when he'd never had to do so before.

Which came back to having to fit caring for a child around everything else he had to do. He was a university professor, with obligations to teach at Gressenheller. As well as this, he was also, somewhat unofficially, a solver of many mysteries – something that the press were well aware of when they frequently monitored whatever it was he happened to be up to at any given time. But regardless of these things, there was a young girl who needed caring for and even though he was not always perfect in managing to do so, as often as he could he made sure that there was at least someone around to look after Flora when he could not. Rosa seemed to find herself doubling as a nanny as well as a housekeeper these days.

There were, however, roles that Rosa could not cover for in the grand scheme of raising Flora. And one of these was attending parents evenings held by the local school that Flora was attending.

Layton greatly approved of parents evenings. He felt that communication between teacher and guardian was something that should be valued and helped the child to progress better in their learning. Even though he was a busy man, he would never pass up the chance to hear about his daughter's progress in her education. So he had rearranged a few classes, denied some requests for him to help solve a few cases and made sure that he was present at the school seven o'clock sharp, as the letter had required.

A school at night, with all its lights still on and obviously full of people, would probably be an eerie sight to many, but not so much to the Professor. He was used to being in the university at all hours, seeing eager students also studying in the facilities there at any given time of day, so this was positively normal to him.

Despite how normal it might have been, however, he felt nerves creeping into his system for an entirely different reason.

Sitting there on one of those little plastic chairs, waiting in a queue of other parents to be called through to see Flora's teacher left him with nothing else to do but think about what said teacher might say about the girl's education. In that moment he had the overwhelming sense of worry that he might not have done his best – he might not have taught Flora enough himself or been around as much as she needed him to be. Maybe all of the puzzles he'd provided her with weren't the right thing to help her along in life.

These worries had time to fester, as it wasn't until a full thirty minutes later before he was finally called through to the teacher's office. Although he felt nervous, he tried to mask it with a smile, silently wondering if this was how his students felt when he called them to his office.

"There's no need for you to introduce yourself, Mr. Layton," said a lady sat behind a desk, a prim-looking young woman who had her hair tied back tightly, "Everyone in London has heard your name."

"All the same, madam, it never hurts to be polite," Layton insisted, tipping his hat before he was gestured to take a seat on the opposite side of the desk.

"If Flora hasn't mentioned it before, I am her teacher, Miss Gilford," Layton was informed, "And I must say that we were very honoured to have the daughter of the great Professor Layton enrolled into our school, even with the somewhat unusual circumstances that came with her."

"Regardless of circumstances, Flora is simply my daughter now," Layton heard himself saying, "And I should hope that her treatment isn't affected too much by my… I'm hesitant to call it such, but 'celebrity status'."

Miss Gilford's eyes grew wide and she shook her head quickly; "Of course not, Mr. Layton. Flora doesn't receive any favouritism at all and is treated just like the rest of the class."

Although he doubted that this would be true for all of her teachers, he was willing to give this woman, at least, the benefit of the doubt.

"I'm glad to hear this," he replied, "Because what I am most concerned about is how Flora is doing in her lessons herself."

There was a moment in which Miss Gilford shuffled through some prepared notes that had been provided for her by Flora's other teachers, before she answered, "You have very little to worry about in that regard. For the most part Flora is achieving about average levels of results in her classes. We expect her to get good grades and move onto the next year with no troubles."

"So everything is fine then?" Layton checked, feeling the wave of uncertainty ease off as he heard that Flora didn't seem to be falling behind.

"There is one thing…"

There always had to be one thing.

"What is it?" asked Layton, as the nerves crept back in.

"There is no delicate way to put this… Your daughter is failing Home Economics," Miss Gilford answered, looking quite awkward about having to impart this information.

"Home Economics?" echoed Layton, frowning slightly.

"Mostly the cookery side of things," confirmed the teacher, then corrected, "Actually, only the cookery side of things. I'm very sorry; Mr. Layton, but your daughter simply cannot complete even the simplest of recipes without, well… small scale disaster. You shouldn't worry too much, as there isn't an exam for the subject this year at least, but it is certainly something that you should be encouraging her to practise."

Layton found himself chuckling slightly; "Don't worry; Flora does indeed get plenty of practise cooking at home."

If he'd known that the only thing she was failing at was cooking then he'd have no reason to worry. As Flora's lack of skills in this department was obvious to anyone who had ever mistakenly tried any of her home baking.

"Are you sure? From some of the results we've been getting, a lot of the teachers were assuming that she'd never even been in a kitchen before," Miss Gilford squeaked, obviously worried about offending him.

"Flora practically lives in our kitchen at home," Layton replied, still smiling, "She may not be very good at it, but she takes great pride in her experimental creations."

"That's the part that we're most worried about," admitted Miss Gilford, "Because Flora has expressed that this is the subject she wanted to pursue in later years. We've tried very hard to convince her to go for options that come more naturally to her, but she is completely set that she wants to study Home Economics on a higher level."

"I see…" muttered Layton, the smile slowly starting to die away.

"As a parent, I would recommend that you either try to convince her to go for other subjects or else… help her to improve her cookery skills, if that is even possible," Miss Gilford concluded.

Nodding, Layton replied, "Thank you very much for your wise advice, Miss. And I also must thank you for the care and consideration you have undoubtedly been showing Flora as she's been studying here."

"Oh, not at all. And if you have any further concerns about Flora's education then you need only to contact us and ask. But for the moment I have a few other people to see before the end of the evening," Miss Gilford said.

"But of course. I'll show myself out," said Layton, getting from the seat once more. With another tip of the hat and thanking the lady for her time, Layton left the office.

He went home that night with considerably more on his mind that he thought that he'd have, barely even noticing when Rosa opened the front door to his own house for him.

"How did it go then?" the cheery housekeeper asked, as he stepped inside.

"Mostly very well," answered Layton, hanging his coat on the rack by the door.

"Mostly?" Rosa could read him like a book.

"There was one thing, as there always is," Layton replied, then changed the subject, "Where is Flora?"

"Where do you think? She's off in the kitchen making pate a la… something with an odd looking vegetable and some chocolate sprinkles in it. Care to give her the cease and desist order?" laughed Rosa, good-heartedly.

"No, I rather think that I won't this time," Layton replied, in a thoughtful manner.

"Well, it's your insides whatever she's making is going to be playing havoc with in the morning," Rosa warned.

"Not if I can steer her on the right track," argued Layton, heading towards the kitchen.

"You are familiar with her cooking, I know you are," Rosa called after him. She knew better than to try to stop the man once he had his mind set on something, however. It was only her job to clean up after any messes he left behind.

Layton ignored this comment, heading through to where young Flora was happily trying to mix what looked like the head of a salmon into a bowl of odd-smelling greenish paste.

She was his daughter, he knew that. She loved cooking, he knew that too. She possessed not even the slightest skill in creating anything edible; his digestive system knew that better than anyone's. But what she wanted to do with her life was cook. That was what he had learned today.

And Layton, although probably not the best parent in the world, knew that as the best parent he possibly could be that it was his job to help teach her to cook better, not to talk her into doing another subject that she didn't have the same passion for.

As he hazardously plucked the salmon head out of the bowl, only to find that it had been stuffed with jam, he knew that he had a long few years ahead of him…


End file.
